Outrun the Dark - Chapter Four

 Hours passed and training continued. Subjects were allowed to take five minute breaks but as long as they weren’t too frequent, the Guards didn’t care.
 Kaie had grabbed some water for her and Alex before they returned to the mat, their weapons lying against the wall.
 “You see why I want out?” Alex panted quietly, making sure the Guards were out of earshot.
 “Never doubted you Alex,” Kaie replied softly, wiping sweat from her forehead. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take…”
 “Lashbrooke! Moon! That’s long enough, training!” A Guard growled.
 Alex groaned and picked up his katana again, recognising the voice as the Guard that had lashed him and Kaie the night before. They weren’t going to argue.
 Ten minutes more of training and the repetitive movements before one of the heavy double doors groaned open.
 Kaie glanced up but like the others paid little attention. Until she heard the scientist call; “Kaie Lashbrooke?”
 She spun to look at who had called her name. Her eyes flicked from Alex to the fair haired scientist still standing in the door way.
 Kaie’s footsteps were soft as she trailed over to the scientist. She smiled softly at Kaie. “Sorry to pull out so suddenly but we just need to test a few things…” Kaie nodded. “I’m… Doctor Lucinda North, by the way…” The scientist informed the following Subject quietly as they walked through the halls.
 Kaie nodded again. Unless she was with her friends she wasn’t much of a speaker. Doctor North smiled awkwardly at the teenager before holding a door open to her.
 She stepped into the sterile white room and took a deep breath. She knew what was coming now and pushed herself onto the table the scientist offered.
 Blood test first. Kaie held her right arm out and watched as North injected the needle into her arm and took the blood, placing the syringe carefully into a cooling bath before the results would be examined.
 North picked up what looked like a metallic chrome bar. She pressed something on the side and a glass like hologram appeared from it. Her face was light up by a pale green light as she used her free hand to type some of the icons. Kaie watched her movements quietly; she doubted even if she wasn’t looking at the icons, pictures and symbols backwards she would be able to make much sense from them.
 Doctor North was the only other person in the room and other than the light beeping sounds coming from the tablet hologram she was holding, the place was silent. No other sound came from within the four walls. No noises echoed from the training hall either.
 Kaie braced her arms on the table and leant forward slightly, looking to her feet which dangled over the side. She let out a soft sigh as her midnight hair fell from place, brushing her chin.
 “Sorry, I’m almost done…” North muttered, still focused on her holographic screen.
 Kaie just shrugged. She didn’t know what North was collecting the data for but she knew it was about her.
 Finally, the scientist set down her device, the chrome bar balancing on the silvery tabletop. “Sorry about that,” She said, retrieving numerous wires and connectors.
 Kaie kept quiet and watched her quietly. She stood up when asked as the doctor attached sensors around her body. Two on her temples. A few on her arms and others on her chest.
 There was a light bleeping noise that came from a nearby computer screen when the Subject looked and she recognised the lines travelling across the screen as her heart rate.
 This was one of the more common tests performed in the Programme. This was just a health test, measuring her heart rate and electrical impulses coming from her brain. Lots of the things the scientists like North had to do to the Subjects like this, Kaie didn’t understand. Even when anyone asked they would never get a straight answer they could only hope to understand.
 There were a few more wires and beeping sounds but Kaie had gone out of it. She just stood there and stared into nothing as Doctor North moved around Kaie, checking the different wires on Kaie.
 Very little of what she did to Kaie in the time she was with her registered. It was always the same thing. Tests like this occurred about once a week though it was unusual to get the same scientist twice in a row.
 This was no exception Kaie didn’t recognise Doctor North by name but she had seen her around the Base.
 There were a few questions which allowed Kaie to answer with one or two word answers. When North was finished, she allowed Kaie to sit back on the table as she logged in some more data.
  Kaie took the opportunity to look around the room. Like with the rest of the Base, there weren’t any windows. The lights were built into the ceiling but sent a more gentle light over the white room.
 Various pages of scribbles lay around on the various tabletops.  The desk North was working on took up an entire wall. The opposite wall supported a bookshelf and a couple of filing cabinets.
 “Miss Lashbrooke?”
 Kaie looked to her.
 “Can I just check you age please?”
 “My age…? I’m sixteen.”
 North nodded and jotted it down, “Thank you. I just wanted to check though everything else seems to be in order…” She paused and met Kaie’s gaze. “You’re… Casey’s sister, aren’t you?”
 The name froze Kaie. It was rare for Subjects to speak of her older sister that used to be one of them, let alone a scientist. It was almost unheard of.
 She nodded stiffly.
 “You look like her,” Was all that Lucinda North commented. She seemed to want to add something more but instead deactivated her hologram device. She picked up the chrome bar, dismissed Kaie and walked out.  

* * *
The final few hours of training had dragged.
Alex hadn’t asked questions for which Kaie was grateful. He was good at reading how she felt and knew when to ask and when to keep quiet. So they trained in silence and Kaie had done her best to ignore the pain building in her back again.
 At last, the Guards barked to the Subjects and the weapons were replaced. One by one, the Subjects walked out of the hall.
 As she passed through the door Kaie slipped her gloves from her hands and clipped them to the hook on her belt.
 It didn’t take along for Kaie to find her place between Minna and Alex. She got a bowl of the familiar grey slop from the vender and took her place on the bench.
 Minna knocked her arm gently against Kaie’s to get her attention. When she looked to Minna she asked, “What were you pulled out for?”
 “Just a regular test, nothing interesting,” Kaie explained, looking into Minna’s deep brown eyes.
 “You just seem quieter…”
 “No, I’m okay.”
 Very little was said after that. The dinning hall of the Base was unusually quiet. There were odd murmurs coming from the Guards but they made sure that the Subjects couldn’t hear exactly what was being said.
 When Kaie looked back to Alex she noticed that he was focusing on something else. She followed his gaze slowly and saw he had locked eyes with James.
 Neither looked as if they were going to be the first to look away.
 Kaie frowned slightly at the two boys but neither looked to her. Instead she turned to Minna, who trained with Daniel near to Kaie and Alex’s mat. Alex wasn’t one to go out of his way to start a fight… usually. So if something had happened Minna was the most likely to have seen it.
 Just as Kaie opened her mouth Minna interpreted her question, “James got too close to Alex and caught his arm with his axe. Alex flipped out since James claimed it wasn’t his fault.”
 “What’s new?” Kaie muttered, referring to Alex and James’ spats. She looked to her friend and a smile broke out onto both of their faces. They managed to stifle the giggle but their lips remained spread.
 Both girls as well as most if not all of the Subjects and even a few of the Guards knew of Alex and James’ rivalry. It was rare they fought hand to hand but verbal wars and stare stands off like these weren’t uncommon.
 At times it was best to just let them get it out of their systems. And hopefully it would just stay like this as a stare off.
 Arguments, if they escalated, could end in punishments. It didn’t take a genius to see that Alex’s back was still tender.
 Kaie sighed and shook her head. She looked to Minna instead, but raised an eyebrow when she noticed even she was distracted.
 It wasn’t clear what Minna was focusing on. She was either looking to the two Guards at the far wall muttering to each other or just staring off into nothing.
 “Can you hear what they’re saying?” Kaie asked under her breath.
 Minna frowned slightly but shook her head, the tips of her dark chocolate hair quivering just below her shoulders. “Can’t make it out,” She muttered, “Though in this place it’s probably something about us.”
 Kaie nodded and caught one of the Guards’ gazes. She turned her eyes down quickly. “Might just be about me and Alex after we…”
  “Yeah. But I haven’t heard anything like that, or your names.” Minna shrugged and looked to her. “So stop being so paranoid.”
 Kaie smiled again and spooned the last morsel of gruel into her mouth, grimaced and pushed her bowl away. She looked to Minna as she did the same and both girls nodded to one another.
 “Alex,” He didn’t look up so Kaie rolled her eyes slightly. “Oi.”
 “Mhm.” He still didn’t look, causing a sigh to come from between Kaie’s lips.
 “We’re going back to dorm. I’ll talk to you later.”
 “Mh-hm.”
 Kaie looked to Minna and shook her head, signifying that was all they were going to get out of him. As she stood up she could see not only the gashes on Alex’s back, but the new one on his arm. It wasn’t very long or deep but the skin surrounding it looked red. Torn. Sore.
 She wanted to say something but shook her head. As she spun on her heel after her friend, she couldn’t help but catch Lindsay’s smirk. She ignored it and followed next to Minna, following the familiar but complex maze of halls to the dorm.
 They didn’t know what time it was since clocks were few and spread out around the Base. The lack of natural light didn’t give them any ideas either.
 No matter what time it was, Kaie knew she was tired. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand as she yawned. Minna looked to her and smiled.
 “Long day?”
 “Like you don’t know.” Kaie smiled. “My back just stings as well which doesn’t help…”
 Minna didn’t say anything to that. She shook her head. Like Oscar, Minna wasn’t too keen on the idea of her best friend always trying to escape. She had very rarely been punished and wanted to keep it that way, Kaie knew that in all honesty Minna was scared of stepping out of line. She was one of, if not the most cautious Subjects in the Programme.
 Escape was stepping way out of line.
 They all knew it was. But that didn’t dampen their desire. All of the Subjects, deep down, wanted a way out of this.
 Kaie and Minna exchanged a look as they opened the door to the dorm. They were usually the first in so it would be quiet for awhile. Sometimes the other Subjects stayed in the dinning hall to speak.
 Unless they stayed to talk to Alex, Oscar, or even Daniel then the two girls would return to the dorm alone. They would choose either one of their beds to sit on and just talk. And that was what they planned on doing now.
 It was their way of helping unwind and recover after the training.